| The HP xw4600 Review: Speed on a Budget Bryan Hoff tests HP's latest brainchild, the xw4600: a fast, quiet and affordable animation and vfx workstation
The first was, it weighs much less than my xw9300. The second is the cool case redesign. At first boot, I noticed two more things: it's fast and it's quiet. While the xw9300 is happy to sit and show me the BIOS screen for upwards of a minute, the 4600 gets on with the show in mere seconds. Where have you been all my life? Apparently, in the minds of engineers... at HP and Intel. But now their brainchild is your affordable animation and vfx workstation. The xw4600 brings choice to the table, and is ideal for 3D artists in the animation and visual effects fields, as well as CAD and DCC. So, what sets this system apart from the rest? For starters, the brand new Intel 45 nm four core processor and Intel X38 Express chipset. It also boasts an Energy Star 4 compliant power supply, which will save you in electricity bills, especially if you've got lots of systems running 24/7. Last, but certainly not least, is the selection of video cards you have to choose from, including NVIDIA Quadro FX, and ATI FireGL. Pricing and Configuration Testing, 1, 2, 3 (4) What I discovered is, there are definite advantages to having four cores on one die, and NVIDIA's new Quadro FX cards run circles around the older ones. HP xw4600 SUM_RESULTS\CATIA\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\ENSIGHT\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\LIGHT\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\MAYA\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\PROE\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\SW\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\TCVIS\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\UGNX\SUMMARY.TXT
SUM_RESULTS\3DSMAX\SUMMARY.TXT 3dsmax-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 29.98 SUM_RESULTS\CATIA\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\ENSIGHT\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\LIGHT\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\MAYA\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\PROE\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\SW\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\UGNX\SUMMARY.TXT SUM_RESULTS\TCVIS\SUMMARY.TXT The xw8400 had two dual core Intel Xeon 5160 processors running at 3.0GHz, 4GB RAM and an NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500 video card with 256MB RAM. Considered a "high-end" video card, the Quadro FX 1700 has a definite edge over the ultra high-end Quadro FX 3500 card loaded in the xw8400 rig I tested. As you can see from the test results, it handily beat the Quadro FX 3500 equipped xw8400 system in every test. Visit http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_11761.html for more details. Next, for those of you who loathe change, you'll be happy to know I included my usual 3ds Max test renders: Displacement & DOF.max and Light Gallery.
Buying Recommendations Not to mention NVIDIA with their newest line of video cards. More power for less money -- where do I sign up? Although it includes two x16 PCI-E slots, SLI graphics is not supported, which may be a deal breaker for some. However, if you're looking for an affordable workstation with power to spare, the xw4600 is definitely worth a look. The Energy Star 4 certified power supply will appeal to users with home offices, and its modern new case design will make you want to show it off, rather than shoving it under your desk. And did I mention... it's quiet? Bryan Hoff is a multifaceted artist and writer. A web designer, digital artist and animator, his credits include movie and television effects, online games, 3D corporate animation, Flash and traditional website design. His writing credits include articles for LinuxWorld, Element K Journals and InformIT, covering topics like Photoshop effects, Linux 3D graphics applications, web and HTML design, RSS feeds and painting with a graphics tablet. Bryan has written ebooks on blogging and website creation for beginners and co-authored the book Moving from Windows to Linux. |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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